Letter: Why are farmers and ranchers regulated by city people?

It is an amazing thing to me that city people because of their numbers control how we are supposed to operate — even though they are unable to run a city!

Since we are a minority as we represent less than 2 percent of the population and are feeding the other 98 percent, we are one of the most efficient industries, so why don’t you just leave us alone? We were doing fine until you city people and environmentalists decided that we needed to be regulated and told that we are not taking care of the land and the animals on that land.

Since you people decided that you know best, you started with Alar being used in apple orchards and it was bad for you. That created a major economic problem for the apple farmers. And it was determined that you would have to eat a truckload of apples a day before it could be harmful.

And then someone decided that the spotted owl needed protection and couldn’t survive except except in old growth timber. Well, we have proven that that was another untruth. So since we cannot log or graze we now have major fires!

However, now some of you who live outside cities and in nature are finding out how the mismanagement of our forests by the Forest Service and environmentalists has now destroyed your houses and property. Now we have a forest of sticks that needs to be harvested within a year, not done.

The new approach by the same people who created these problems is now saying we need more money to solve this problem. I would say fire all of these people and hire someone who knows what they are doing, log and graze and the income will be incoming rather than outgoing.

And the latest hare-brain idea by the environmentalists is to bring wolves in from Alaska, which are no more native than elk. The cattlemen and farmers were smart enough to know why they had virtually been eliminated — because they are predators. So here again they are going to force the people who are trying to make a living and are feeding the 98 percent who have to pay the price so that the people in the city can have a good feeling.

The ironic part of this stupidity is that it is a mandate of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to protect the game we hunt and that can be controlled by people who buy hunting licenses, which is income for the department.

The wolves in Yellowstone have killed more than 7,000 elk but they saved some trees, as the elk are not rubbing their antlers on them. The wolves, however, have found that cattle are easier to hunt and taste better, while you city dwellers could care less that the cattlemen are taking it in the shorts without any recourse. And since it is the idea of environmentalists I think they should pay all of the costs for the rancher for depredation and all management costs — such as for hiring more people, loss of income and weight, plus other costs such as helicopters to hunt wolves — since they have so much money to spend on lawyers.

Their next idea is to introduce the grizzly bear. Another predator! It looks like this may be stopped. However, “take out the dams” will never die.

This reason I am writing this in that hopefully some people who live in the cities will look and realize that our so-called environmentalists are not the good guys! If you want to find a real environmentalist, talk to a farmer or rancher.

My suggestion to all farmers and ranchers is that you need to join your local Farm Bureau, as I do not know of anyone else that can or that will help you when you need it.